RenderAs

RenderAs is a naming convention used across software to indicate that a value should be rendered in a particular form rather than displayed in its raw form. It is not a standardized feature across all platforms; rather, it appears as a configurable property in data models, templates, serializers, and UI frameworks. The property typically takes an enumerated string value that identifies the desired rendering mode, such as 'image', 'markdown', 'html', 'text', 'chart', or 'thumbnail', among others.

In content management and templating, a field with renderAs instructs the rendering pipeline to transform the stored content before presentation. For example, renderAs: 'markdown' would be processed by a markdown renderer; renderAs: 'html' would bypass escaping or further processing; renderAs: 'plain' would render the content as-is. In UI and view-models, renderAs can guide the interpolation layer to display a value using a specific component, such as a text block, a link, or a custom widget.

Applications include data export, where renderAs maps data to a target format; visualization, where it selects a visualization mode; or GIS/3D models, where objects may render as different representations.

Because the feature is framework-specific, the semantics, available values, and default behavior vary. Developers typically document the accepted renderAs values and provide fallbacks if the value is missing or invalid.

See also: render, template, serializer, renderer.